On this land we loved the best 194

This a very pertinent or should I say relevant poem right now, as of yesterday (25th March 2014) I gave up the tenancy of 200 acres of the farm after 35 years, and just for now we still have the farm house and a few fields that surround it. Then later in the summer we hope to retire proppa to a house a 100 yards down the road.
Our move prior to that, was also only about a 100 yards where I had started farming in 1960 and stayed for twenty years.
My move from the home farm where we were brought up to my first farm was half a mile, all within the village.
When I get up in a morning at the farm house, track to the bathroom and then off back down to the kitchen to put the kettle on , I have done 65 paces, in our retirement house it will be all of 10 paces. Think i'll have to join a gym or sommat crazy.


Since I wrote this a couple of years ago  "On this land we love the best"  it should be renamed   "On this land we loved the best".

They always told us as kids that there is a pot of gold at the base of a rainbow, don't even bother looking now.

On this land we love the best

We are watched from way up high, on how we treat our land,

This land that we are caring for, for generations stand,

To stand just where our fathers stood, see it through their eyes,

And how the fields and lanes have looked, neath the clear blue skies.

The misty foggy mornings, dew drops on all the leaves,

The sunrise on the meadows, the bird song in the trees,

Long shadows in the evening, as the sun sets in the west,

Trees and bushes in full bloom, on this land we love the best.

Owd Fred

A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

Cicero (106BC - 43BC) 

Good old Seighford Village 193

Good old Seighford Village

It’s a job to know where to start, as the village and its occupants from years gone by are in the St Chads Churchyard, every time you walk through the grave stones you find yet another family name and of a trade’s men farmer or farm workers and all their families.

Up until the 1940’s we were almost self sufficient as a community,

The wheelwright made all the gates built all the farm carts wheel barrows and feed troughs and was also made the coffins and the  undertaker.

The blacksmith as well as shoeing all the horses in the area repaired the machinery most of which was horse drawn, hooping wooden wheels with the wheelwright, right down to making iron work in the old fire places trivets, chimney cranes and the like.

In The estate yard there was a handyman come builder come Thatcher who, a man who could do he plumbing, most of that was lead pipe, the galvanized iron pipes were only just coming in.

A cobbler who  mended harness  as there would have been twenty or thirty working  horses  within his local area, as well as mending and making leather boots a and shoes.

The village shop carried most of the basic necessities like salt sugar flour and also the Post Office, and also sold paraffin for the oil lamps in the houses and cottages, and for the tilly lamps used to carry outside and in the farm buildings.  

 The School. Children walked in from as far as two miles away in all directions, from the surrounding hamlets. The head teacher at one time was also the tax collector and would put pressure on the children when money was due.

The Pub. In the Holly Bush, Beer was brought up from the cellar on big jugs, and the customers would sit at a scrubbed wooden table with all sorts of oddment chairs. It would be all local people who walked or came on a bicycles.

There was six farms actually in the village, the land and fields belonging to them spread out in all directions, although on the area of peat land on the east side of the estate, everyone had a portion, so it fragmented all the farms. There would be around fourteen farm workers all in tied cottages, cottages that went with the job, and as tractors came in the number of workers reduced, milking machines again reduced the labour force, old cottages went into disrepair and were eventually pulled down to form a building site for new house’s.

The Landlord lived in the “big” house on the bank just out of the village, rent was paid to him on rent days “Lady Day”, and “Michaelmas day” at the Holly Bush pub. When you had paid the rent to the agent, you were then invited to have a drink at the bar on him. I was told by my father that in his early days on the estate they all went to a hotel in town to pay their rent, and stayed for a slap-up meal.  It was a change of estate agent that change that to the pub in the village.

A man's homeland is wherever he prospers.
Aristophanes  (450BC  -  388BC ) 

Money, in life it is a must. 192

It aint till ya get to my age that you start to cash in ya assets, then realize you had done just like our old man did years ago when we always thought what a tight arsed old git, and  done the same thing me sen without knowing it.

Money, in life it is a must.

If there’s one thing ya conna do, without in life it is a must,

Fa comfort and for energy, it’s always boom or bust,

Ta buy or sell, to try to swell, to savings bank ya thrust,

Surplus money, it’s hard to save, when yov earned an onest crust

Ya money’s what ya need right now, n’ savings got to raid,

With all the bills paid up to date, as the tax man wields his blade,

With nothing left on the bottom line, red ink now displayed,

Ya start again n’ work like ell, in blood n’ tears n’ sweat yuv flayed.

Be persistent don’t give up, it’ll come right in the end,

Money now, you’ve got it saved, and too dam mean to spend,

Tight as a ducks arse, that you are, still make do and mend,

Ya conna tek it with you, when six foot down impends.

Owd Fred

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

W Somerset Maugham  (1874 - 1965)

What are you like regular mealtime breaks 191

What are you like on your farm for regular mealtime breaks, the morning start and knockoff times. We were brought up as kids to all sitting down at regular times every day to eat together.
It was (and still is though I don't milk now) a 6.30 am start, that was dictated by the fact the churn milk collection lorry arrived in the village at 8am promptly and the milk had got to cooled and labeled by that time.

We were the fifth pickup and it was around 8.20am by the time he got round to us, we all, that is the cowman and the tractor driver who carried the milk and fed the calves went for breakfast as well. Father had his pigs to feed and clean out, us kids had hens ducks and geese to look after, and back at work again in half an hour, or school for us.

In the next village their milk wagon collect the milk about 10.30am, and they did not start milking until 8 o'clock, with a lunch time of 1.30pm, whereas our lunch break was always mid day for one hour, with milking at 3.30pm and all finished and fed by 5.30pm. In the next village it would be a 7.30pm finish.

Our time routine was more convenient particularly when the threshing machine came, he liked to fire up his outfit a 9am promptly with a 12.00 to 1.00pm break and finished at 5pm. The threshing outfit went from farm to farm up the village and a man was "borrowed" from each farm to make up the gang of nine needed for that job. Every one was on the same time routine and it worked out well.

Even now some seventy or so years later, I have kept to that same time routine. I can arrive in the house at meal times with the table ready laid, the Misses likes it, it gives her a regular routine knowing exactly when to expect us.

When I started farming on my own at Church Farm, we had the church tower and the church clock looking down at us all day from about a hundred yards distance with the chimes every quarter hour and gongs for the hour.

St. Chads Church tower has two clocks, the one you see is facing south, the other one faces west towards Church Farm.
The thatched house in the picture was a farm cottage, now demolished

Church Farm House facing East looking onto the church tower,  the farm buildings to the right in the picture

When we were at the distant field working we had the railway run through both The Beeches farm fields and the Church Farm fields, and between 3.15pm and 3.30 there would but three express steam engines flying through at full sped, the "Flying Scotsman", the "Caledonian" and another named train. ( It was said by the railway men that they had to clear that track of slower local trains at 3pm to allow these three train to go though at full chat)  That was the time we went to take the cows down for milking.

 I might add here that the gang of six lengths men who maintained the two mile stretch of line, (four lines, two up to London, two down to Scotland, I could never understand that.) would jump over into the corn field at harvest time and help stook the shoffs of corn when we were bindering, (wheat or oats) and two church bells later (14 days) would help load the farm wagons. Also at this time there was a goods engine driver who would slow right down by those fields and get his fire man to roll big lumps of coal off the tender for father to collect them later with the farm cart. They were all in the home guard together, and contraband got exchanged there every week, farther taking mainly potatoes and for the engine driver a half a pig, it was transported under the local bobbies nose by the wheelwright in a coffin. but thats another story


A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
Segal's Law.

The Farm Sale 190

No I am not having a farm sale here, but a couple of years ago a neighbouring farm sold up and I sent quite a few items up to be sold back then. Now another neighbour is having a dispersal sale and again I am contributing some more of my deadstock, to be sold at his sale this spring. (2014).

I have been selling off items of machinery privately over the last three years as and when a buyer came up, but you get down to the last few thing that could still be worth selling for further use. I have been  scrapping all that what I call "useful reuseable metal", you know, the sort of metal that you can make or mend stuff with, but its got to go at some point in time.

 Everything is on a priority list, and I keep gleaning through my workshop scrap heap, some of my tools are the old Whitworth and AF spanners, but I fear they are getting frightfully close to going to the crusher. An old brushing hook kept for trimming nettles and briars off the electric fence, I doubt if the younger generation have ever heard  of  or would know what it is, and that was the way we cut all the hedges not fifty years ago. 

An old scythe, when you see them using them on the television programs, it make you cringe at the mess they are making. not a clue how to use or sharpen it. The old men, before they had lawn mowers would be cutting the lawns around these stately homes, not as short I grant you, but it was always a very tidy job. 

The last serious job I remember with scythes was to cut a "road" round the corn fields (wheat barley and oats, for those way over the pond). It was absolute sacrilege to run a wheel, or run corn down with wheels back then before the days of the combine. A few days before we were ready for bindering, two gangs of three would head one each way round the outside of the fields of corn, one scything, two picking up the crop into bundles and tying them with what we called a bonce of straw, no string. It was just wide enough for the old Standard Fordson to travel pulling the binder for the first time round.    

You just get carried away, just thinking back on how we managed, setting too with a two furrow plough in a fifteen or twenty acre field in winter with no cab, but that just another tale for another day.

The farm where we were brung up, my first farm, my present farm, and the house we are retiring to all in one picture, seventy five years all in one village. 

A village fete advert mown into some stalky grass in thirty foot letter, (by some silly bgguer who has nowt better to do ) it made it into all the local press, photo taken by the local gliding club, the tug plane pilot.

  I just wish it was as easy and simple as I make it sound in the verse I writ a couple of years ago,

 --see below   

The Farm Sale

The years have come the years have gone, its time to sell the lot,

And now I've got to organize, the sale of all I've got,

To pull it out the sheds and then, n’ lay it out in rows,

For all and everyone who comes, to have a dam good nose.

The tools and all machinery, bought it years ago,

Ploughed the land and worked it, encouraged crops to grow,

Harrowed all the grass in spring, soon as the Daff’s appear,

Cattle would be turned out, and sold that big fat steer.

Job to know where to start, and find things long forgotten,

Things we used like brushing hooks, n’ pitch forks stale gone rotten,

Shovels spades and muck forks, all standing where last used,

Some I've had a long time, and some they were abused.

Workshop that’s a nightmare, the scrap ruck will increase,

Wading through the junk to find, that lost now found tailpiece

All the things you save as spares, but things move on apace,

Out dated now and far too small, with newer one replaced.

The tractor that’s seen better days, reliable it has been,

Well used and got a loader on, could do with a dam good clean,

Worked it hard all day long, every day of the year,

Last day now it has arrived, and to the field must steer.

A second one it’s older still, with a draughty cab,

Tyres worn and torn about, n’ the paints a little drab.

Steering wobbles brakes no good, useful to have about,

Its winter when it wonner start, I have a dam good shout.

Be sorry to see an empty yard, and all the cleaned out sheds,

The damp old house abandoned, and empty old farmstead,

Silence now for few a weeks, until new folk move in,

Then once again start from new, new livestock make a din.

Owd Fred

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
Booker T. Washington  (1856 - 1915)

The Smallholding and White Cottage. 189

The Smallholding  and  White  Cottage. 

This cottage opposite the pub was occupied by Mr and Mrs Clark.  It was a small holding of about forty acres, as on all the farms on the estate, it had some close land, and some on the meadows down the Moss lane, and some over the railway down the Moor lane. This house had only one main room, and a scullery, then a lean-to on the back of the house, this was used as a dairy to cool and store the milk churns over night, until the milk man came the following morning.  Upstairs it had two bedrooms, and the only privy was a little brick and tile loo, under a bush, down the garden path.  In this house they brought up a family of six children.

This is the house to the smallholding in the centre of the village, the house is still there  but the farm buildings, see below have been converted into a house. In this picture above, the building on the right was the wheelwrights shop and between that and the house is the roof of the two bay hay barn. The original milk churn dairy was the small lean to at the end of the house, and full milk churns would be hand rolled along the length of the house to the road side (left)  for the 8.15am pickup by the milk lorry

This was the cowshed to the smallholding before it was converted into a house, the sliding door in the gable end facing the road was the new dairy  built when the house was parted from the farm. The wicket on the left of the black railings was put in when the bulk tank was installed so the tanker could connect his pipe to their tank. At the right hand end of the railings is the old wooden churn stand to hold the four churns that would be lifted on there for the lorry from the dairy could just roll the full churns directly onto his wagon.

This is a picture from the back of the smallholding showing the new wheelwrights shop on the left that Jim and Bill built, and on the right the old low tin shed the their father Harry worked in. the hay barn and the chimneys of the old village shop and post office  above in the centre of the picture

Old Harry Clark, I can only just remember, (1940's ) not a very tall man, and quite round in his later years. He was a wheelwright by trade, and worked in a low tin roofed shed down below the wooden pole hay barn. He was a man who enjoyed a joke, and quite mischievous in a nice way.  It was said that when bagged fertiliser first came out, Charlie Finnimore, [of Yews Farm] sent a new man to spread it on the meadows under the Ashes Wood. It turned out he had spread it on one of   Harry's small fields down there.  Later Mr Finnemore realised the mistake, and went round to see Harry for recompense, only to be told very politely that he did not want it, and that he could send the man down the following morning to pick it up again, as he did not mind at all!.

Mrs Clark, Harry's wife, could only just get about, and getting a very old lady, like Harry she was quite round, and had her own chair by the fire where she could easily reach the kettle, without having to move.  In fact as a child I was amazed that when Mrs Clark was sitting down she seemed to have no knees.  Her part in the carpentry business, over the years, was to line the coffins that Harry made, for the local people, who were then buried in St Chad's churchyard.

They had six children, Henry [called Harry] the oldest, Jim, Bill the youngest, and three daughters in between. Henry worked for the post office as a postman, and travelled to work in a little old Austin 7 car, the one that had a straight up windscreen and a starting handle permanently out in front.  Henry was the smallest of all the family, and walked with a heavy limp; this was due to him having a short leg and had a boot with a four or five inch sole.

Henry lived with his wife Nell in the cottage next to Cooksland Farm gate, on the other side of the lane was a small garage for his car. Nell worked up at Cooksland House for Major Eld, and her father lived in a small room, or lean-to, on the end of a house on the end of Smithy Lane. He was Bill Ecclestone a very old man when I was a child; he helped around the different farms when needed. His worn-out body seamed to lean forward, almost forming a loop under his bracers, where his chest had been.  He wore corduroy trousers that were tied below the knee with string, and old boots that had worn out laces.  The shirts worn in them days all had loose collars, his shirt at work had no collar or stud to hold the neck hole together, and looked as though it had seen many washes [ and missed a few as well]. He lived an independent life in his small room, but well looked after by his daughter Nell.

Jim was the tallest of the family, and when married lived in the second house up the Coton lane [turn left at the west end of the village second house on the right].  This had a craft, [Crofters have crafts- small field] where he kept hens and reared a few pigs, I think it had two pig sty's.  He worked as carpenter for the estate along with Eric Kilford who was the builder bricklayer; Eric built up Kilfords the Building firm and employed quite a lot of men.  Jim took over from his father, when his father became too old to continue, having learned all the skills needed to become a wheelwright, and all the traditional tools that had built up over the years for that trade.

When the Cumbers council houses were built, in the 1950s, Jim moved into No10, and Bill moved into No9, right opposite the farm and workshop. By this time Jim was full time, having taken over from "The old Chap".  Jim and Bill built a new workshop, with double doors that would lock, a great deal higher and bigger than the one the old chap used.  A complete farm wagon could be built and painted all indoors, and a good deal lighter as well.

As I said Jim was tall, all of six foot, but I expect that working all his earlier days in low cottages, and always ducking his head, he carried his head slightly forward, giving him a slight hump on his shoulders. [Not quite as tall as he should be], they all had caps on in them days, and Jim had his pipe always in his teeth, not always lit.  I think it was St Julian tobacco, that he smoked, and I got as much pleasure, from the smell of the smoke, as he did smoking it.  You get the ambiance of a room when you walk into it, so you did from Jim's workshop, with the smoke from his pipe, or the new cut oak shavings, or the fresh new paint when he's finishing off a job.  His pipe spent that much time, in his teeth, that it wore his teeth away in that one place, to the extent that he could clench his teeth tightly, and the pipe would still hang comfortably.  In normal talk, he would talk with the pipe in place.  But if some cussing was to be done, it would be a prodding motion with the pipe in his hand.  But more often than not it was tongue in cheek cussing.  [Enough about the pipe].

It was always a big joke when Jim and his wife Minnie, went on holiday for a week to the seaside with friends. Minnie would have Jim move all the furniture, to dust and polish, "even behind the bl----  wardrobes had to be cobwebbed" he went on, in case someone had to look in, while they were away. Minnie was a big friend of my mothers, and was very proud of her new house, number 10 The Cumbers.  She was also keen on her flowers garden, and front lawn. Jim had to do the lawn mowing and dug and planted the veg patch. His comment to these jobs was "Why didn't they build the B motorway across my front lawn, or at least tarmac it" he went on, "I could sweep it off and paint it green each spring and save all this work."

  Bill, the youngest of the family, looked after the cows. Up until the 1950s they were hand milked, and then they had their first milking machine.  Then followed a few years later with a bulk milk tank, they stopped picking milk up in churns shortly after that. Bill had 14 cows that was the maximum that the sheds would hold.  They were well looked after, and heavy milkers, and nearly always turned out for the night onto the craft opposite the Holly Bush Pub.  During the day they went down through the ford, to the banky field at the end of Moor lane, or the field at the top of the road bank on the right.  At the ford the cows came from all directions, Village Farm cows came down the bank to the ford the up the Moor lane, Church Farm cows went down the same way as Bills.  On the village green, Green Farm cows would be going out, and also Yews Farm cows went across the green to the Moss Lane.

On a few occasions Bill would have to encourage his cows to move across the path of another herd, or sometimes meet another herd head on.  He always had a long nut stick, and always on his bike when on the road with the cows, and when a problem like this came up, he would get off his bike, and gently tap his cows on through the opposing "team ".  He rarely lost any or picked any extra up, the cows knowing there own fields or sheds.

In his younger days Bill was in the village cricket team, often he was wicket keeper, then when in batting he would hit and run, and really liven the proceedings up, scoring some very quick runs, or getting himself or his colleague run out. The cricket square was in the middle of the present village football field.  It was a football field then as well.  During the week the cricket square was fenced off, and Bills cows would graze round it.  Always a joker he would examine a persons ploughing, to see if it was strait. If it was one of us younger ones, and it was crooked, he would be relentless in telling anyone who would listen, as to how many dead rabbits he had picked up.  Telling them how they had broken their necks, running round the bends in the furrows.  Another wease he had was when someone had spent a day working hard at cleaning or sweeping up, he would say "That looks better, which have you done ?",  then watch for the reaction, then laugh.

Only a small man, he had a job to reach the floor when astride his bike, and with his Woodbine lit, and his nut stick across his handle bars, set off promptly at three fifteen to fetch the cows in. As long as everyone else was at the regular time, the herds would not clash.

They had a little grey Fergy tractor, which was used to cart the muck out to the field in winter, and in the summer, they would mow the meadows for hay.  Then when they wanted timber for carpentry, they would be off down to Henry Venables timber yard on the tractor, sometimes for wide elm boards, still with the bark edges, for trailer floors, or oak for making gates, or timber for making a coffin.

If anyone died in the village, Jim and Bill would be called.  I remember one occasion when Bill was not available, Jim called my brother and I to help him lay out a neighbour who had died that morning.  The first thing we were asked to do was to lift the pantry door off its hinges, and put it on the table. Then we helped lift the deceased onto the door to lay her out, this was a normal procedure as there is not much room in a lot of cottages, and pantry door or scullery door had hinges like a gate, and could easily be lifted off.  When Jim was walking off down the village, with a long notched stick in his hand, we knew he was off to measure a body for the coffin.  People did not have long measuring tapes, as we have now, so a long measuring stick was used. [Carpenters usually had a wooden two foot rule].  If you are a person living in one of the Seighford cottages, you may never realise what your old pantry door had been used for, besides blocking a hole in the wall.

After having got the measurements required from the body, Jim would proceed to make the coffin.  This would take all afternoon, and he would work into the evening to get the job done.  On occasions Eric Bennion would call with his car, to transport the coffin to the deceased's house, discreetly covered with a blanket.  His car had a large carrier rack on the back the right size.  I heard a story about Eric, carting a coffin about on the back of his car, when food rationing was on.  There were strict restrictions enforced by the police, usually by the local bobby on a bike based at Great Bridgeford the next village.   Eric, Jim and Bill had to move a pig that had just been killed at one of their houses, to someone who wanted it, but shouldn't have it because of rationing.  So the obvious way was in a coffin, covered up on the back of Eric's car, and at night.  I believe they passed the police but were never suspected.

Of coarse all the men of working age at that time, were in the "Home Guard" based in Great Bridgeford village hall.  No end of contraband food exchange hands without a ration book in sight, not all of them worked on farms or were farmers.

Owd Fred

The old Club Room and Adjoining Cottages 188

The old Club Room and Adjoining Cottages

 

The third window going left of the doorway  where the roof is very low  is the store room for the club room. In the picture below is how it used to look, with a thatched roof, a very small house one up one down

The old club room is situated on the end of Smithy Lane, and was used mainly by the men of the village, to play cards and snooker, on a Monday and Wednesday nights.  On Friday nights it would be set up for the weekly whist drive, having up to eight tables.

The fire would be lit on a rota by one of the community a couple of hours before the event, and an old electric fire at the opposite end of the room.  this would warm the room almost hot but never got on top of the damp.

Next door, was a very thatched small house, the roof was rotting away, so it was converted into a store room for the club.  The door was bricked up and the roof was tiled and the front hedge pulled out, as was the old hedge round to Smithy Lane.

These two cottages are now amalgamated into one cottage, the front door to the thatched cottage is behind the pyramid bush on the right  in the picture

The middle house of the three was occupied by Norman and Flossie Brown. Norman worked at Green Farm for Reg Fairbanks and did all the hedge laying, and building the bays and stacks of hay and corn. Again when the Cumbers houses were built Norman and Flossie moved into number 2, and lived there throughout their retirement.

The third house away from the village hall was lived in by Mr Hill, who was cowman for Charlie Finnimore at Yews Farm.

The last two houses above were knocked into one, the front door into the third house was along the side , and that was the one that was bricked up, and with internal adjustments, it became one house. 

Flower's cottage. 187

This old cottage is still standing, it has been stood empty now for over sixty years, its tiled roof has been kept in reasonable condition, it is half timbered with two rooms down and two up along with a lean too back kitchen round the back.

Flower's cottage.

One interesting feature is, it had its own well in the small stone structure in front of the house, seen in the picture left of the front door.

 It has a wide inglenook fire place beneath the only chimney and to one side in the cheeks of the inglenook is a built in bread oven. A fire of dry sticks and logs would be lit in that oven, and the smoke from it would go up the chimney within the inglenook, when hot enough the ashes would be raked out and bread and other items for cooking would be place in, the very hot bricks and tiles that form the floor and dome of the oven remained hot for quite q few hours. 

The last person to live here was Reg Flower and his family, they moved out in the 1950's into one of the new ten council houses that had just been built. Reg worked on Cooksland Hall farm for Eric Bennion, he was also a very good carpenter, and at weekends he turned barber, cutting the hair of most of the  farm men of the village.  

How we Lived in our Old House (1940 0nwards) 186

Lived here from 1942

How we Lived in our Old House

Insulations none existent, big jumper you must ware,

Half timbered single brick, few inches plaster of horse hair,

Frosty weather glistens inside, a fridge you could compare,

Roof half filled with starling’s nests, built up over the years.

Kitchens the warmest place, coal fire in big old range,

Heats the oven and boils, the kettle on the chimney crane,

Boils the taters and stew, toast the bread on a fork,

From the ceiling hangs a cloths drier, lifts and lowers on cord.

Bedroom bove the kitchen, only room upstairs warm,

Usually the kids have this room, that is always the norm,

Other rooms are chilled and cold, cool in summer though,

This is how we lived them days, kids now will never know.

Old iron bedstead webbed with steel, straw mattress on the top,

Then feather mattress covered with a white sheet she’d pop,

Mother made a groove up this, dropped us into bed,

A sheet two blankets and eiderdown, feather pillow lay ya head.

Best front room not often used, too posh to use every day,

Used over Christmas and party’s, best crockery out on display,

Fathers roll top desk in there, his bills and letters wait to pay,

Always locked cus of cash in their, he always had last say.

Now heating was a big open fire, ingle nook chimney above,

Logs as long as ya can lift, one end on the fire to shove,

The bigger the fire, bigger the draught across the floor,

The heat goes up the chimney, fresh air comes in under the door.

A cellar beneath front room, brick steps leading down,

Couple of vents to the garden, the mesh with weeds overgrown,

Air circulation its not good, and musty damp and wet,

Timber in the floor above, gone weak and springy pose a threat.

A room with settlass all way round, there to salt the pig,

Not been used now for many a year, doesn’t look so big,

Salt has drawn up the brickwork, all through to outside

Bricks are flaking and rotting, replace section of bricks decide.

Mother kept a big tin bath, hung on a nail outside back door,

Brought it in to the hearth, filled with kettle and big jug she pour,

Youngest first then nother kettle, warm it agen for the second,

Cold night our steaming little bodies, hot crisp towel it beckoned.

So we kids lived in the big kitchen, our bedroom top of back stairs,

Long old sofa under the window, father had his own armchair,

Big old peg rug in front of the fire, we played and sat on that,

Large old radio in the window, then hurray first tele in front we sat.

Countryman

And here from 1960 for 25 years

Looking back at pictures of my first farm 1960 185

 Some old picture of where I first started farming in 1960

Parts of the old farmhouse date back getting on for 300 years, the gable end front is part of the original house being half timbered. 

Judging by the pitch of the roof it would have been thatched 

This was the modern double sided cowshed that you could only dream of back in the 1950's  when this was built, it tied up 26 cows, see the same shed on the right of the top picture

The store shed and loft where feed for the cattle was stored,  dairy corn and other straight  feeds like beet pulp flaked maize and barley for rolling went, and below was where the mangle's  hay bales and straw for bedding was put through each day from the hay barn

A general view through the farm gate looking between the house and cow shed, at the far end of the yard we had erected a new cubicle shed to hold 64 cows, which makes this picture  1970. 

On the bank in the distance is the wheelwrights workshop, and the small holding that his brother ran 

An early aerial picture 1970,  farm house on the left,  with new cubicle shed  top left,  the cow  shed that held 26 tied up is just to the right of the house and just above that roof you can see the new milking parlour  where we milked 64 cows.

The hay baler is on the yard in the centre and on the right you can just see the old warn out Martin Markham flail forage harvester with its blue spout  

Bottom right in the picture is the needles of the top of the church tower, and the new house was built on the site of the old thatched house, see picture below

Another 1940's picture of the back of the farmyard taken from the fields, on the right is the new white roof the the double cowshed, the old thatched  cottages in the centre below the tower of St Chads church

An older picture still of the thatches two cottages probably 1930 , the south side of the church covered in ivy,  there is more about these cottages in the storey "Green Farm Cottages" written and put on a few weeks ago.

Smithy Lane Cottages 1948 184

Smithy Lane Cottages, now demolished, were situated halfway along the village on the south side of the road, these were occupied by three families, at the far end out of the picture is the front door is the cottage that John Lowe with his wife and family. The main front door with the porch Jim Doughty and his wife Vera  and at this end Bill Ecclestone and his wife , (thats Mrs Ecclestone in the picture at her front wicket) they lived in the smaller section attached to this end of the main house, it can be seen in the lower picture on the right. I understood that Bill was the thatcher, he got too old and unsteady to repair the thatch on the old estate cottages and no one left with enough skills to do that kind of roof repairs. 

To add to the problem of thatching, combines were just coming in and the wheat crop had to be left standing another two weeks to get fully ripe, by this time the straw was brittle and broke up going through the drum of the combine head first. When cut with a binder there was some green and life still in the stem/straw, and harvested long so to speak, then later in the winter it was fed into the threshing drum parallel with the rotation of the drum the straw coming out still long.  

As time went on new varieties of wheat were bred with shorter straw and higher yielding of grain. Now some fields of wheat are grown for its straw here and there for the thatching industry, such as there is, harvested in the old traditional way.

These were taken down to make way for the second lot of twenty houses and four bungalows, two of which sit on the site of these old cottages. The cellar to the middle one reached out from under the house almost to the edge of the road, it took almost half the rubble from the house to fill in the cellar

Bill Ecclestone with his dog standing looking back at who is taking the picture, his cottage is on the right. The over hanging branches of the oak tree on the right was sawn down by two men and a cross cut saw, the old stump is still there, rotting away with some flowers now planted in it. Again that was sawn down to make way for the new houses, the hedge and hedge bank excavated out to make a road way in to a cul de sac, Bramall Close.  

Two Green Farm Cottages 183

This was a pair of cottages butting right up to the churchyard fence, in fact the one facing the church had its front wicket opening into the churchyard and a footpath through the grave stones to the lych gate, and that was the main way to and from that house. (see the bottom picture).

The second house faced away from the church and over looked the Church Farm rickyard and was lived in by a very old lady who's husband had died some years ago. She was loosing her eye sight and also going deaf, she had always fetched her milk from the farm. It got to a stage where it was not safe for her to be walking out, so we would take her milk across the road to her. The house had no mod com's the loo being in the small brick and tiled toilet bottom right in the picture, and only one cold water tap over the sink in the scullery. Prior to 1952 water had to be fetched from the village green pump opposite the school.

 When old Mrs B died, the house was never used again, the same as with the other thatched houses, it wanted re-thatching, the thatch had started to rot around the chimney. In the bedroom above the living room with its wide inglenook fire place was the main wide chimney part of which was faced with wattle and daub and a part timber frame, this collect the smoke from the wide inglenook below. The cast iron range that all these old house had was framed in bricks and a brick main chimney, a long oak beam formed the inglenook.   

When it was pulled down it revealed some old ships timbers that formed the main frame of the house, they were old very hard black oak, when cut with a chain saw, sparks came off the blade. Holes and joints were carved into the timber where they had been fitted together in a ship, now they were used  in a house they were assembled bottom up, inverted and reached up to beneath the ridge of the roof.

The stairs to these old house were formed around a central pole, the steps doing a half turn round it to reach the bedroom above which was little more than a hole in the floor of the bedroom with a hand rail, the second bedroom was accessed through the first.  

Two Green Farm Cottages.

The cottage on the right had only one bedroom window, a front door and window below that and a small scullery window on the far side

The same pair of cottages, the one facing the church had a wicket from its front door through the church yard and out the lych  gate

The second cottage facing the church had two rooms downstairs, a fire place in each, hence the chimney at the end if the house and two bedrooms. This is a much older picture than the top one, the houses appears in very good condition, and looking at the old grave stones in the picture, you can see exactly where the old front wicket used to be and the position of the houses themselves prior to being demolished. The new house built on that site was positioned some thirty feet further away from the church fence.

These old houses disappeared around the time the new Council houses were built, mains water had already been brought in and a new sewage system to cater for the new houses.

Wents Wood Cottage 182

Another of the old cottage from the past

Wents Wood Cottage was situated out of the village very close to the perimeter runway of the old war time Seighford airfield, so close in fact that a disabled Wellington Bomber came into land, landing on the grass up the centre of the airfield. It skidded across the perimeter track across the garden of the cottage and stopped with its nose cone along side of the bedroom window and main wing up to its gable end .

 It was said that the old lady who lived there popped her head out of the bedroom window and asked the pilots if they were okay, only to be told by them to get out of the house now, as the whole lot could have gone up in flames, but as it happened it did not catch fire, and was towed back onto the airfield the following day.

Wents Wood Cottage

Like most of the old cottages around here the ceilings were very low, the bedroom window in the picture was only a few inches off of the bedroom floor. As you entered the front door it was only a shallow step into the house, the main thing I remembered about it was the grandfather clock just through the door on the right, it was taller than the rooms ceiling so a hole had been  made up into the bedroom above between the beams to allow the clock to stand upright.

As you see in the picture this house has a relatively shallow pitched roof, suggesting that it had been built from new as a tiled roofed house, some houses in the village, the Holly Bush pub for example has a very high pitched tiled roof, the angle used for a thatched the roof .

This picture was taken towards the end of its useful life, as its occupant became older so the vegetation started to over whelm the garden, and later the woodland eventually engulfed the empty house. the useful tiles and bricks that could be reclaimed were taken until the house was totally demolished.

 No other house was built on the site and is now just woodland.

Woodman's Cottage (picture mid 1930's) 181

This cottage was situated half way between the Village Farm house and the Beeches Farm house on the Beeches side of the road.  

As with all the cottages, they were allotted to the different craftsmen, or if the cottage was "tied" cottage to one of the farms it was always a farm cottage. 

 In this case it was the Woodman's cottage, the woodman being employed by the estate to look after the many different woods and coppices around the estate. From planting to felling, cutting up trees into suitable lengths to cleft posts and rails for fencing, and doing the maintenance to all estate fences . 

Woodman's Cottage

The picture looks a bit too tall and narrow, but you get what it looked like. In the picture is Aurther Lawson the last woodman to live here along with his son and daughter plus the dog, in fact he had three children.
His son became a railway engine driver, when the railways were still in steam and towards the end of his career went onto diesel loco's. His older daughter lived and work at home as they had lost their mother, working part time in the house at the Beeches Farm, her husband Bill also worked full time at the Beeches Farm.
After Aurther retired in the late 1950's the family moved into one of the new council houses opposite the village shop and after a few more years the cottage was pulled down and the site cleared and amalgamated into the adjacent fields. There is almost no trace of where this house had been other than a post in the fence and hedge.
I remember one day there was an almighty scramble for a long ladder, a pan of fat had been accidentally spilt on the fire, causing the chimney to catch fire with sparks coming out of the chimney and landing on the thatch.  It almost met its demise that day, but a long thatching ladder kept at the Beeches was hastily put up the roof and sparks quelled.
The place where the thatch seemed to give way first on these old houses was around the chimneys and once they started to leak in the rot got deeper into the thatch until the whole lump of rotten straw sank into the house.
 As I said before about other old thatched houses, the estate man who "did" the thatching around the village cottages had become too old and died and no one else had the skills to repair them, the only man who attempted top repair the thatch in the 1930's was the wheelwrights son Jim Clark. Many of them wanted a complete stripping and re-thatching, and that never got done. The new council houses were too big a draw on the village population for them to want to live back in the dark ages in these old thatches cottages.

A new sewage system was put in through the middle of the village just before the new councils houses went up and that ended the "bucket and chuck it" down the garden toilets that all the old houses had.